Is This Rap Now?

The untimely death of famous white-boy-rapper and Beastie Boys co-founder MCA produced an outpouring of affection for the hip-hop pioneer, who, along with his bandmates, proved that if a bunch of middle-class Jewish guys could become legit rappers, anyone could.

The appearance recently of teen-girl-rapper Kitty Pryde–a 19-year-old from Florida with lyrics about Justin Bieber and casual drug use–shows the next step in that evolution. At worst, Kitty Pryde (who takes her name from an X-Men comic book character) could be written off as another vapid brat-rapper in the school of Uffie or Kreayshawn, but, initially at least, it seems like there’s more to her than that.

The laid-back laconic rhyming of her new single “OK Cupid” isn’t on par, technically, with the best rappers of our day (or even those who cover them), but Kitty Pryde’s perspective and melding of teenage girly-ness with a genre totally at odds with that seems significant. Much like MCA and the Beastie Boys, Kitty Pryde doesn’t look or sound like your average rapper, but her self-effacing lyrics–she knows she’s a skinny white girl from Florida as well as anyone–allow people to enjoy it without necessarily taking it seriously.

It’s highly unlikely that Kitty Pryde’s impact on our culture, or her longevity, will come anywhere near that of the Beastie Boys, but at the very least she’s an important milestone in the evolution of rap and proof that hip-hop is becoming the most democratic musical genre of our time.